Blogs from Chiang Rai, North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 29

Oy my god I am having so much fun here! Have just returned today from my three day jungle trek to the mountain hilltribe villages. One of the hardest and most rewarding things I have ever done. Now that Iam finally clean again (I didn't know it was possible to be that dirty and smelly!) we have gone out for a night on the town in Chiang Rai. Went to Tipi bar and (once again) got really drunk. I have drinking more in the pat three weeks than I have in the past three years, I think. That's not even an exageration, I swear. Wass just browsing through my previous blogs and realized how much I have done and experienced in such a little time, and know that I am lucky. Loving it all! Will update ... read more

OK, I'm sure everyone has assumed that by now I've given up updating my blog because I'm so far behind. Well, I haven't. I've actually been working on this entry on and off for more than two months whenever I've had the chance. I hope you all enjoy it! :) Even before I started my travels in September, I knew I had to do more than just see sights, take pictures, and just generally live a life of leisure while visiting exotic countries. I wanted to give back, if only in my small way, to as many places as I could manage while still allotting enough time to do the conventional backpacker thing. To that end, before I started my trip I arranged four short-term volunteer projects in four different countries over the ten months I'll ... read more

Went on a trip today and it was brilliant, much much better than Monday. It was to northern Thailand, including the golden triangle - where Thailand has borders with Laos and Myanmar (Burma). Got collected at about 7.30 for a joint trip i.e. people from other hotels had booked onto it. I was the last one to be collected and all the good seats were gone. Seriously! In a 10 seater van everyone had sat near the front and the only seat left was right at the back in the corner. I had to climb over everyone to get to it. The guide for the trip is called Oak (his nickname - it’s custom in Thailand for everyone to be given a nickname at birth, he did quite well sometimes it’s things like maggot! He was ... read more

Chaing Rai is a nice place in Northern Thailand with a small town atmosphere - that was my first impression as we alighted from the express bus from Chiang Mai. As we collected our bags from the baggage hold, a great cacophony started up. It sounded liek someone had plugged a little transistor radio into an immense amplifier and cranked the volume up to full. Joyous music, sounding a bit like a song from one of those old Technicolor kids' musicals like "Oliver" started to play. Nobody seemed to think it was all that strange. In fact, I noticed that nobody was doing much of anything. Jen cottoned on first (slow me!). "It's the national anthem," she whispered, "we're supposed to stand, right?" Yup. That's what the guidebook told us in the etiquette section. After a ... read more

It looks like Rachel took the (good) weather with her back to Leeds and kindly left us in the monsoons of Bangkok in September, yes the rainy season has arrived good and proper. The monsoon style down pours have to be seen to be belived. The major problem with this is that Bangkok being the 'Venice of Asia' ie built on a whole load of canels, it is very close to sea level and when it rains many of the streets and buildings, particularly next to the river are flooded. And like Venice, the whole place is sinking apparently which is a rather depressing. By the way it appears we have neglected to mention that there has been no obvious signs of the coup in Bangkok (or anywhere else we have been in Thailand), so all ... read more